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Coles returned to Australia in 1919 and married Lillian Knight. He joined with two brothers and an uncle to open a variety store in Collingwood, a working-class suburb of Melbourne. Working on the slogan "Nothing over 2/6", the business grew rapidly. The family opened a series of new Coles Variety Stores around the country, Arthur moving to Sydney in 1928 to open and manage the first one in New South Wales. In 1931, at the height of the Great Depression, he returned to Melbourne to become managing director, a post he held until 1944. GJ Coles & Co became the largest retailer in Australia. (Today, the merged Coles-Myer retail empire has around 20% of the entire Australian market.)

Coles became Lord Mayor of Melbourne in 1938, remaining in that position until 1940 when he resigned to stand for the federal seat of Henty as an independent. Coles was one of the two independents who held the balance of power through the early years of the Second World War, and crossed the floor in 1941 to remove the hapless United Australia PartyUnited Australia Party or UAP was an Australian political party that was the political successor to the Nationalist Party of Australia. It was formed in 1932 when Joseph Lyons, a Labor MP, and his supporters crossed the floor to bring down the Scullin Lab government of Arthur FaddenSir Arthur William Fadden ( April 13 1894 April 21 1973), Australian politician and 13th Prime Minister of Australia, born at Ingham, Queensland, the son of a Presbyterian police officer. He was educated as state schools, and later studied accountancy whi and install John CurtinJohn Curtin ( January 8 1885 July 5 1945), Australian politician and 14th Prime Minister of Australia, led Australia through the darkest period of its history: when the Australian mainland came under direct military threat during the Japanese advance in W as Prime Minister.

In 1944, Coles retired from business and devoted himself to public works, becoming the chair of both the Commonwealth Rationing Commission and the War Damage Commission. With the end of the war he resigned from Parliament and became chair of British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines (BCPA) and the Australian National Airlines Commission (see TAA). He was appointed chair of the Melbourne Olympic Games Committee in 1952, and a member of the CSIRO Advisory Council in 1956. He was knighted in 1960, and retired in 1965. Sir Arthur Coles died in 1982, leaving three sons and three daughters.